Feed calculator
Pick the kind of animal, how many and how heavy. You get feed per day and for the period you need, as dry matter and as fresh forage.
Per animal per day
10 kg dry matter
50 kg fresh forage
Whole group per day
100 kg dry matter
500 kg fresh forage
Over 30 days
3,000 kg dry matter
15,000 kg fresh forage
Check the inputs: a number is out of range.
This is typical maintenance and production intake. Add 10 to 20 % for feed that gets trampled or wasted, and give clean water freely.
How it works
How we work it out
Ruminants and horses eat a share of their live weight as dry matter: beef cattle 2.5 %, cows in milk 3.5 %, dry cows 2 %, sheep 3 %, goats 3.5 % and horses 2 %. Laying hens eat a near-fixed ration of about 115 g of feed a day.
Dry matter and fresh forage
Green grass is mostly water. To turn dry matter into fresh forage we divide by the dry-matter share: with grass at 20 %, each kilo of dry matter is 5 kilos of fresh grass.
Common questions
- How much does a cow eat per day?
- A 450 kg cow eats about 11 kg of dry matter a day, which at 20 % dry matter is about 56 kg of fresh grass. A cow in milk can eat 40 % more.
- How much does a laying hen eat?
- Between 110 and 120 g of compound feed a day. Much more usually means waste or cold; much less means something is wrong.
- How much does a sheep or a goat eat?
- About 3 % of its weight as dry matter: a 50 kg ewe eats 1.5 kg of dry matter, about 7.5 kg of green grass.
- What is dry matter?
- What is left of the feed once all the water is gone. Requirements are given as dry matter because the water in grass changes with the season and the hour.